Blue Ruin

The hero of the sharp thriller "Blue Ruin" is a burned-out, hollow-eyed, disheveled man who lives in a rust-bucket car and scrounges food from garbage cans. He's adrift in almost every way, and it's hard to believe he has it together enough to undertake a bloody revenge plot. But he does.

Informed that an old acquaintance is being released from prison, the man, Dwight, swings into panicked action. Clearly he's not as far gone as we thought. In true hard-boiled style, dialogue is minimal and background is doled out frugally, but we'll eventually understand that, decades ago, the convict murdered Dwight's parents.

Dwight (Macon Blair) is anything but a natural-born killer, but his rage and survival instinct prompt him to look for a weapon - not hard to find, since the film is set in the South. He smashes the window of a pickup truck to steal a hefty handgun, but he's forced to expend much energy trying to break the lock on the pistol. It's an example of the grim humor that writer-director Jeremy Saulnier ("Murder Party") employs throughout, offering relief from scenes of violence that can approach the level of exploitation films.

The filmmaker works with economy and has a knack for creating a sense of foreboding, which is good because the plot is simply a working out of the old saw that violence begets violence. Dwight finds himself tracking (and being tracked) by a family of bloodthirsty hillbillies. He's shot with an arrow (and spends one excruciating scene trying to remove it from his leg). When the situation calls for it, he's capable of using a knife with deadly results.

Actor Blair does a fine job of making us understand that while Dwight is relentless in pursuing his idea of justice, he has no more expertise in violence than the average audience member. There remains a wariness that balances his angel-of-death side.

There's good support from Amy Hargreaves as Dwight's highly perceptive sister, and Devin Ratray as an old friend who keeps an arsenal in his rural compound and is happy to teach Dwight the way of the gun.

At one point, Dwight needs to change his appearance, so he shaves, trims his shaggy mane and climbs into some decent threads. He's a clean-cut fellow now, but has the same old melancholy look in his eyes, which hints that revenge won't buy him peace.